Big discrepancy

KNOXVILLE — There’s a strong sentiment that the Tennessee men are the Dallas Mavericks of college basketball.

The Volunteers aren’t tiny, but they’re certainly not big, starting with their first five: three 6-foot-2 guards, a 6-7 small forward and a 6-9 power forward.

UT’s athleticism and perimeter shooting prowess have often proven too much for opposing defenses to overcome. The Vols are capable of impressive scoring runs, having reached 80 points two-thirds of the time this year and having eclipsed 90 on seven occasions.

“Offense? Yeah, we can do that,” UT coach Bruce Pearl said while laughing.

But can the Vols win six NCAA tournament games and a national championship with their style? Can they even win four games to reach the program’s first Final Four?

Do they have enough muscle for March? More than a few people don’t think so.

“Everybody is underrating our inside play,” the 6-9 Wayne Chism said. “That’s what’s ticking me off every time I watch TV. We get talked about in the post all the time. It’s always, ‘Tennessee ain’t got no strong guys inside,’ like everybody else is strong inside and we’re not.

“Then we look at our schedule and we’ve dominated some of the big teams, and we still aren’t getting any credit for it.”

UT has been outrebounded only twice in 15 games since Duke Crews returned to the lineup Jan. 26 after being deemed fit to play following concern about an undisclosed heart condition. One of those two losses, however, left a fresh impression on tournament analysts.

The Vols were beaten up on the boards, 34-22, in Saturday’s SEC tournament semifinal loss to Arkansas. The Razorbacks had 13 offensive rebounds to UT’s 16 defensive boards, and that helped them to a 92-91 upset victory.

“A lot of things didn’t go our way, but I’m not going to take anything away from Arkansas,” Crews said. “I give credit to those guys. They played a great game.”

Tyler Smith said he still had “no idea exactly what happened” against the Razorbacks.

“They hit a lot of shots that they normally don’t hit,” Smith said. “But, hey, defense numbers speak for themselves, and they had 90-something points.”

Crews chose his words very carefully when asked about the foul discrepancy in the SEC tournament. UT was whistled 52 times in its two games, while South Carolina and Arkansas had a combined 38 against the Vols.

“There were a lot of foul calls, and once you get in foul trouble, you’ve got to play more timid,” Crews said. “Foul trouble plays a whole lot into it, but more than anything I’ll just credit their big men for a nice performance and move on.

“We took our hits that night, and now we’re focused on bouncing back.”

The Vols aren’t going to change their defensive philosophy. They are going to take chances in passing lanes, trying to force turnovers and get out in transition. And they vowed to stay physical, regardless of how referees call any game.

“It’s no different than how Duke plays defense, or any other top-notch team that’s known for defensive pressure,” Crews said. “We’re going to continue to play like that, and if fouls come, we’re deep enough that we can normally pull through.

“That’s our game. That’s us.”

Added sophomore point guard Ramar Smith: “When we get calls that we don’t like because of our physical play, we’ve just got to play through that.”

Referees generally don’t alter rebounding numbers, and UT wouldn’t face a bigger team until at least the Sweet 16. The Vols are the only major Division I conference team in their opening weekend pod, and American, Butler and South Alabama are perimeter-oriented.

But any game after this weekend would likely be different. The East Regional is stocked with frontcourt stars such as North Carolina’s Tyler Hansbrough and Louisville’s David Padgett.

“Our name’s not coming up as much as JaJuan (Smith) and Ramar and Chris (Lofton),” Chism said of the Vols’ guards. “Those guys are all over the TV ... and they’re good. You can’t take nothing away from them, but I can’t just stand there or sit there and let somebody talk about us like we can’t do anything (inside), so we’re going to step up, and we’re going to show them that we can play in the post.

“We can be a little team inside and still battle. We’ve beat a lot of teams like that, and we’re going to show them again that we ain’t little on the inside.”

The Vols pounded on each other pretty hard Tuesday afternoon, and they took plenty of heat from a fired-up coach. Pearl said the team, as planned, had a “good, physical practice.”

“Our defense and our rebounding were improved this year,” Pearl continued. “It helped bring home a championship, but it did not carry over to the SEC tournament.

“If it doesn’t carry over to the NCAA tournament, we’ll get knocked out earlier than we should.”

Tyler Smith said he believed Pearl’s words, but he dismissed the notion that UT can’t rebound and defend the post well enough to win a national title.

“We are kind of undersized a little bit, but at the same time I think we can hold our own pretty well,” Tyler Smith said. “You can’t say that’s always a big factor just because of last game, but at the same time we got beat up. They just beat us up physically, and we never really fronted the post. That brought back all the talk about us being too small inside.

“Yeah, it happened against Arkansas, but I don’t think it’s going to happen anymore.”